no. 525
White to play. This position is from Rogers-Milos, Manila Olympiad 1992. How can White do better than recapturing on c3?…
Holiday hell
In Competition No. 3067 you were invited to provide a tale of travel misery on behalf of a well-known traveller…
2378: Boundary
One unclued light, a term for a boundary of an area whose name is formed by two unclued lights, is…
to 2375: 2
Unclued lights are MOONS OF (1A) SATURN (9), which are OTHERWORLDLY (2). First prize Don Young, Shaw, OldhamRunners-up Samantha Pine,…
Of course the young like socialism – they’re taught to
It beggars belief that Jeremy Corbyn can, with a straight face, announce that capitalism has failed and we’d all be…
Markets are clever precisely because people are silly
A month ago I wanted to travel to Bath for a 60th birthday party. From Kent, this either involves a…
Dear Mary: Is it really forbidden to eat with a fork’s tines facing upwards?
Q. My husband and I have been invited to the birthday party of a distinguished public figure with whom we…
Stockbridge, Hampshire: an unexpected gastronomical haven
‘The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers / Pass me the bottle, old lad, there’s an end of summer.’…
Why ‘embolden’ is a word in a million — and it’s currently in vogue
Embolden is a word in a million. In other words it is quite common. Using data from Google Books, the…
Simon Collins
I am in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to visit my daughter. This is my first visit to the Steel City, so to…
Brash free speech
It’s taken a while, but the speech wars have reached New Zealand – and an Australian is in the thick…
Brown study
The criticism of Peter Dutton over the au pair visas was bizarre in three respects. First, one of the frequent…
Julia Gillard’s dropouts
In 2008, Julia Gillard announced that the Rudd government’s policy of uncapping university places marked the start of ‘a higher…
Latham’s law
There’s a surprisingly simple way of ending the malaise in Australian politics. Turn off the fast forward button. Everything is…
Dumbing down
The Commonwealth Minister for Education, Dan Tehan, must be congratulated for rejecting the curriculum model pushed by the OECD’s The…
The media vs the people
‘The separation of powers means that the legal system is answerable to no one,’ I said, speaking at the Sydney…
No real pain in Paris
When the infighting over the Liberal leadership raised the possibility that Australia might join the United States in exiting the…
Fear and loathing in Ultimo
Apropos Michelle Guthrie’s sacking, and the bitchy tweet ‘Excellent decision’ by Four Corner’s Sally Neighbour, the ABC has always been…
Some Brandenburg section leaders
‘Celebrating 30 Years of Baroque’ is Paul Dyer’s theme of the 2019 Season of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra; 30 years…
Trump’s toughness
Let’s talk quotas, ignoring social media morons and Trump’s toughness. The first topic has to do with all those laments…
Aunty’s dropped her bloomers
There’s delicious irony in sacked managing director of the ABC, Michelle Guthrie, being replaced by a man. Having pursued the…
Climate catastrophe: an update from Tim Flannery
It’s my fault. I should not have been browsing The Guardian Australian website. There I was, minding my own business,…
Enid Lyons: the speech of the nightingale
In one of his many colourful metaphors, Prime Minister Billy Hughes once described Australia’s first female Federal parliamentarian as “like…
Their ABC exposed, implodes
The GayBC has become a creature of its own imagination. Observing incandescent staff delight from its far-right commentators – Phillip Adams, Barry…
